Coming Of Age: Conference, Game Have Grown

While others at other schools have also established landmarks -most notably Charlotte Smith's shot for North Carolina's national championship in '94 and Kay Yow's direction of the U.S. team to Olympic gold in '88 - Staley remains the most recognizable player ever to suit up for an ACC school.

She, too, was a gold-medal-winning Olympian, in '96. As floor general in college, Staley led Debbie Ryan's Virginia teams to three consecutive Final Fours, starting in '90. The Cavaliers were a heartbeat away from coronation in '91 before losing to Tennessee 70-67 in OT.

Yet, Chris Weller gets the footnote for taking her Maryland squad to the very first NCAA women's Final Four, in 1982. The location? A body of water away. In Norfolk.

Speaking of firsts, Clemson's Barbara Kennedy scored the very first basket of the very first NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament.

That tournament ended at Scope, which actually was the site of the first two women's title bouts.

Come back across the bridge-tunnel, fast-forward to '94 and head to Richmond, site of the most dramatic NCAA women's championship. Start your clock at seven-tenths of a second and see Smith -in an all-or-nothing 3-point jump shot - get it all. All net. All the marbles.

Contrary to popular belief, she wore No. 23 because it had been her mother's number, not someone else's. But who doubts that Sylvia Hatchell enhances her recruiting pitch when she happens to mention on the radio that Michael Jordan has just visited her team.

Smith, of course, was the niece of N.C. State's David Thompson, who started this skywalking craze. That's the same altitude Kay Yow was on after her U.S. troops conquered the best in the world in Seoul, Korea, in the '88 Olympics. Slightly more than a decade before, the Soviet Union had defeated her hodge-podge U.S. All-Stars by 73 points. Really.